Movies - TV
Kevin Costner Insisted On Harrison Ford's Casting In Air Force One
By JOSHUA MEYER
In the 1997 action thriller “Air Force One,” Harrison Ford famously pushes a Russian terrorist out of the moving jet reserved for the President of the United States and growls the one-liner, “Get off my plane!” However, if Hollywood history had gone differently, it might not have been Ford's plane at all.
Ford told The Los Angeles Times that the film landed in his lap only after Kevin Costner passed on it and sent the project his way. Ford revealed, “This was a script that Kevin Costner originally had and he gave it to me. Kevin knew this was a big commercial movie and his schedule didn't allow him to do it. And he told [the producers] he would let it go only if I could do it.”
Costner appeared to have passed up “Air Force One” so that he could make “The Postman,” which outright bombed at the box office. Ford, meanwhile, had gotten his pilot's license in 1996, so he was ready for the air, both off and on screen, ultimately delivering a memorable performance in “Air Force One.”